Lost Truth

Back in the old days three TV networks – ABC, NBC, CBS – ruled the news; since all three tilted left, a lot of people often wondered, Is that the truth? Tom Ellis saw a cure. A conservative network. So, forty years ago, he, Jesse Helms, and I sent 900,000 people letters asking them to…

Read More

The Past, Never Past, Just Keeps Repeating Itself

The Past, Never Past, Just Keeps Repeating Itself Off and running, campaign racing down the road, Thom Tillis ran head on into two threats: Can he beat Roy Cooper in a General Election? Can he win a primary if Trump opposes him? Three years ago, flailing in the primary, running for Senate, Congressman Ted Budd…

Read More

Devil’s Whispers

One voice roared the man who killed fourteen people in New Orleans was angry because he was broke; nodding, another pointed out he’d also lost his job. The man in Las Vegas, another said, blew up a bomb in front of a hotel because he suffered from PTSD. Psychologists, sociologists, professors, wizards in newspapers pointing…

Read More

A Price?

Before the election, looking from Trump to Harris, a lot of my friends without hesitation thought, Trump, amen. Trump fit their political world – he’d avoid foreign wars, cure the economy But hardly a soul asked, ‘What’s more important in a president: Politics or Character?’ Sitting in the White House, how does a president’s character…

Read More

Finding a Genius

Happy, naming cabinet members, on his way back to the White House, Trump says he sees phenomenal days ahead. Oddly, there’s one word you hardly ever hear these days: Covid. People like to forget hard times. But Covid was Trump’s toughest challenge. How’d he do? When the plague first reared its head he told us…

Read More

Strange Times

He married, divorced, married again, divorced again, married his second wife again (his third marriage), divorced her again, had children with 2 women he didn’t marry, had 12 children in all. When a Twitter post rapped him, angry he tweeted back, Take a step back and F*%# YOURSELF in the face. Answering that angry tweet,…

Read More

Hitting the Nail on the Head

Staring at a title, tempted by two words, I clicked – it looked like a knife fight was coming. Between an atheist and an evangelical Christian. Growing up in Kentucky, David French went to a small Christian college, went on to Harvard Law School, served in the army during the Iraq War, came home with…

Read More

Another Story from Politics

Watergate sunk Nixon. Jimmy Carter was elected. Two years later Jesse Helms ran for reelection. In 1972, he’d been the only Republican to win a Senate election in North Carolina in the 20th century. After sweeping statewide elections in 1974 and 1976 Democrats were on a roll. Here’s a story about Jesse’s 1978 campaign from…

Read More

A Surprise

‘You tell a lot of good stories about Reagan, like his saying a prayer for the man who shot him,’ a friend reading my book said – then laughed, ‘But I wish you’d been kinder to Trump.’ He’s a conservative. Reagan was a conservative. Trump’s now head of the Republican Party. So he sees Trump…

Read More

Tall Tales?

I might be wrong but a story one of Kamala Harris’ political wizards told after she lost sure sounded like a tall tale. He started out by telling a reporter there was no value, during the campaign, in Harris speaking with the New York Times or the Washington Post, added, Their readers are already with…

Read More